Oxton said he and Burns were living together and in 2007 when they picked up homebrewing as a hobby.

“Within three batches, we were totally obsessed,” Oxton said.

Burns went home to Pennsylvania once, and while there, ran into an old friend, O’Mara, and told him about homebrewing. O’Mara then began brewing on his own, at least for a little while.

“Mike (O’Mara), hearing there was an opening in our apartment, quit his job in Philly and moved up here and that really started to move us forward,” said Oxton. “The three of us were living in the same house (in Somerville). We continued homebrewing like crazy.”

They became so obsessed, the trio began brewing two times a week. They had so much beer in the apartment, they started hosting tasting parties, Oxton said.

The reason for the parties was two-fold — first, to clear out their stock of beer and second, to see what people thought about their brewing effort.

“We got a really good reception,” said Oxton. “That pushed us.”

The group decided they wanted to open their own brewery, and began raising funds. They found a location in Everett. The name, Night Shift, came from the fact that all three worked full-time day jobs and then brewed at night.

They incorporated in March 2011, and then brewed the first batch of beer on Feb. 3 of this year.

“All of our beers are homebrew creations,” said Oxton. “We’ve been working on them for awhile.”

This is a phenomenal beer. Despite its relatively high alcohol content, it still drinks light. The honey and orange peel had some nice flavors to this beer.

The Taza Stout is brewed with cocoa nibs from Taza Chocolates in Somerville. It is also brewed with chicory root and ginger.

I was a little concerned about this beer due to my hatred of ginger, but the flavors all blend together nicely. The use of Belgian yeast gives it a fruitiness that really works in this 7.2 percent ABV beer.

The Trifecta is a Belgian-style pale ale, which uses three different Trappist yeasts, which is unusual.

Page 2 of 2 - “We used to brew 15-gallon batches of beer when we were homebrewing, and then we fermented them in three 5-gallon buckets and we would put a different yeast in each bucket to see which one tasted better,” said Oxton. “Each beer came out really nice, and we decided we wanted to see what it tasted like if we used all three yeasts. It came out awesome. Sometimes you stumble upon good ideas.”

Night Shift plans on introducing two more beers later this year, a Belgian-style dubbel and a sour ale. Oxton said the names have not been picked yet.